Funk Babblings

Background: Sometime in the murky mists of time (the 70s and 80s), Ohio State University had a student-run radio station, WOSR. I don't know why it died, but when I got to OSU in the early 90s the only radio there was the staff-run classical/NPR station. At one point I was on the far periphery of a movement to get student-run and community-oriented radio back to OSU, but the best they managed was some internships at WCBE, the other (more community-oriented and musical, but also NPR-ish) public radio station in town. FCC rules and the crowded central Ohio radio spectrum prevented them from achieving their goals. Eventually a different group managed to get student-run "radio" on the campus cable system and then streaming Internet radio; after being called Underground.fm and KBUX, apparently it's now known as Ohio.fm.

Anyway, since I last paid much attention, broadcast radio have become somewhat less important as Internet radio and podcasts have become possible. But the FCC also finally changed their rules to allow low-power FM stations; this was a major goal of the early 90s group.

So today I learned about WCRS, a low-power community-oriented station being started by Simply Living, which is a local sustainability-oriented community group. Among other programming, WCRS will broadcast a local music podcast, which is how I found out about the station.

So if you're in Columbus, see if you can pick up WCRS on 102.1 or 98.3 FM. It looks like they're still in the early stages of building a schedule, so I don't know how interesting it'll be to listen to (or how far the signal goes), but it's worth keeping an eye on. It looks like they started small, with 11am-1pm Mon-Fri broadcasts, but the podcast is on at 6pm Wednesdays.

Life imitates The Onion once again.....

The Onion, October 2, 2002: "RIAA Sues Radio Stations For Giving Away Free Music"
The LA Times, May 21, 2007: "Artists and labels seek royalties from radio"

I can't wait to see the response from Clear Channel.


(As seen on Slashdot.)

You've all noticed that in the past year my attention turned from broadcast radio stations and internet radio to podcasts. Besides the reasons I've already mentioned, it was partly due to the fact that there just isn't much good radio where I live now.

My two favorite broadcast radio stations are CD101 in Columbus, and WOXY in Oxford Ohio (home of Miami University). Both are independent commercial stations, neither public nor corporate-owned. WOXY embraced internet broadcasting early on, and (unlike CD101) has been tech-savvy enough to always make sure that they provided streams in formats that everyone could listen to on any computer.

But while I was paying attention to podcasting, I stopped paying attention to these stations, so I didn't notice when WOXY had to go off the air. Turns out that after going silent, they were able to return as an internet-only station. However, they continued to struggle financially, and they are now attempting to bring in enough money to keep going while they get advertisers to figure them out.

"Unfortunately, at the moment, advertisers just don’t know what to think about us. Are we a website or a radio station? Is our audience local or (inter)national? How do we track who’s listening? Everyone is intrigued by what we're doing, but advertisers are not quite ready to throw enough ad dollars our way to make it work."

Although I haven't listened to them lately, I want to be able to listen to them and don't want them do go away, so I think it's time I paid attention to WOXY again.... their campaign ends March 6, after which they'll determine whether they have enough money to proceed.

I just found out that last night there was a 5-hour concert, organized by Wynton Marsalis and broadcast on some PBS and NPR stations, dedicated to benefiting hurricane relief efforts. Go over to NPR's page about it for RealAudio (or Windows Media audio) links for each hour, plus a few highlights they've selected. I haven't listened to much yet, other than a Robin Williams segment, but apparently there were some great speeches along with some great music. Too bad there's no MP3 for listening offline.

Meanwhile in a not-so-highbrow part of town, the Louisianan southern-rock band Dash Rip Rock started an occasional podcast a few months ago, and the latest show includes tales of Katrina evacuees and survivors, and some of their music related in various ways to the hurricane and flood.

One of the things I miss about Columbus is CD101. (The closest we have here is WAPS.) At least CD101 provides an internet feed (though it's Windows Media rather than MP3, Xine can play it on Linux), so I often listen at the end of the workday.

And this weekend is an "undercover weekend" -- all covers all weekend. My kind of covers, too, like Too Much Joy and Paul Westerberg. This even beats half an hour of covers every few days on the Coverville podcast.


BTW, I think I've finally recovered from last weekend, just in time for another -- hopefully a less crazy one.

No, I haven't vanished. Work's been busy and tiring, especially with getting up by 7am but rarely getting to bed before midnight.

officialgaiman reminded me that the new Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy radio series begins tomorrow (Tuesday). It's available on the net via RealPlayer. It says it's at 6:30pm with repeats on Thursday at 11pm, so I think here in the Eastern U.S. that means 2:30pm Tuesday and 7pm Thursday. (Any Anglophiles wanna check me on that?) Then it's available on the net for seven days after the Thursday repeat.

The plot follows the books starting with Life, the Universe, And Everything, rather than the original radio series (which was the story's original incarnation, predating the books). For the most part this means that as far as this radio series is concerned, the second radio series never happened. I'm looking forward to hearing Arthur and Ford chase a Chesterfield sofa across prehistoric Earth in the first episode -- one of my favorite scenes in the entire saga.

Update: I'm now listening here, or maybe here.